I Want An Animation Checker For Christmas

The living flames in the fireplace in Disney’s The Night Before Christmas (1933) are cute but after they burn Santa’s butt (what’s with Disney and butt jokes?) and St. Nick turns around, they make an unexpected shift for two frames that the animation checker didn’t catch. Could the cameraman have been sampling a bit too much eggnog when shooting this scene?



Oh, no. Another butt joke. Did anyone laugh at these 80 years ago?



The guy who played Santa the year before reprises his role in this cartoon.

Santa's Workshop, 1932

Walt Disney switched from Christmas comic violence in 1931 (Mickey’s Orphans) to Christmas charming musicality the following year. The biggest gag in Santa’s Workshop was a doll being scared by a spider so her messy hair will stand on end to be put through a permanent wave machine. He’s not being shot in the butt by cats smaller than a mouse like in the Mickey cartoon the year before. But there’s lots of colour to dazzle people’s minds away from the lack of a story, some nice early ‘30s settings and plenty of characters marching (or doing other stuff) to fill the screen.



Compare the two shots below. One is from Santa’s Workshop and the other is from The Night Before Christmas, released in December 1933.



Read more about the cartoon and see it at Devon Baxter’s post on Cartoon Research.

Kittens and Mice Don't Mix

So, let me get this straight. Two mice, one of whom owns a pet dog, are bigger than little kittens. That’s the unusual scenario in Mickey’s Orphans, the first of three consecutive annual Christmas cartoons produced by Walt Disney.



Here it is 1931 and already Mickey Mouse has been emasculated into being a well-meaning sap. He decides (with the assistance of a corsetted, moose-headed Pluto, to play Santa to the little kitties. Mickey gets his home wrecked for his trouble by the ungrateful little wretches. I’d accuse the cartoon of being anti-cat, but cats really are jerks sometimes. Looking all fuzzy and cute in cat videos on the internet is just a ruse.



Uncle Walt loved butt jokes.



The cartoon was nominated for an Oscar. No doubt that’s one reason Disney decided to make Christmas cartoons for the next two years, though he and his story people decided to go for aw-shucks charm instead of kittens shooting and breaking chinaware. More tomorrow.

The Endless Skate

Animation cycles can be found all over the place in the cartoons of the New York studios in the 1920s and early ‘30s, and here’s an example from the 1929 Van Beuren cartoon “Skating Hounds.”

Here are ten consecutive drawings.



Put them together on consecutive frames and you have this (it’s a little faster in the actual cartoon):



Sorry for the fuzziness. Someone on a video sharing site didn’t realise that taking a low res video and reposting it at a higher resolution doesn’t improve the resolution. But it’s better than nothing.

Paul Terry and Manny Davis receive the “by” credit on this. The sounds seem to have been an afterthought. Mouths move but nothing comes out of them and a slide whistler is used as a substitute for a voice (Maurice Manne was responsible for the effects). Josiah Zuro’s score includes “Jingle Bells,” “The Skater’s Waltz” and an opening theme with a happy xylophone.

The Singing Ciccio

At first glance, Jack Benny seemed to like unknowns when his show had to hire a vocalist. Kenny Baker (1935-1939), Dennis Day (1939-1944, 1946-1955) and Larry Stevens (1944-46) came out of nowhere before landing on the Benny broadcast. But it wasn’t always that way. In the ‘30s, the show employed Jimmy Melton for a short period. And then there was Frank Parker.

Parker had been a vocalist on a variety of radio programmes before he was signed for the Chevrolet show hosted by Benny in fall 1933. Parker stayed around for two seasons and then signed a movie contract with Universal. Considering the long, lucrative career Day carved for himself, thanks to the Benny show, hindsight shows Parker’s career move wasn’t the best one (can anyone other than a diehard old film fan name a Frank Parker movie?). He had topped a number of polls proclaiming him radio’s best tenor, showing what the exposure with Jack Benny did for him.

Parker was picked up in the ‘50s by Arthur Godfrey (another man not known for bringing in established acts) and made a bit of a comeback. Rock and roll made Parker passé.

Let’s go back to the time when Parker was at the top of his career. We found this in the Long Island Press Radio and Screen Weekly section from December 1, 1935. By this time, he had left Benny and struck out on his own.

Parker retired to Florida where he died on January 10, 1999, age 95.

The Singing Kid From Mulberry Street
Frank Parker Still Can’t Take Himself or Fame Seriously
By Hilda Cole
TODAY, tenor Frank Parker, man-about-town-ish in his grey tailored suit and white gardenia, bears little resemblance to the younger edition of himself, Frank Ciccio, the kid from Mulberry St.
But Frank has one thing in common with most of the boys who rose to prominence from lowly beginnings in New York's turbulent East Side—a twinkle in his eye, a rare sense of humor, and a sympathy for all stragglers.
However, his success story, and its been a pretty phenomenal one in radio, doesn't run along the conventional boy-from-East Side lines.
For instance, he never sold a newspaper, in his life. Nor did he save his pennies to get along in the world.
Ask him, fully expecting an affirmative answer, whether he was an ambitious kid.
Frank will give you a quit-kidding look out of his grey eyes and reply: "I was as lazy as they come. In fact—my only ambition was to have a good time."
WHEREUPON you find yourself grappling for an angle on his rise to the top of show business. I think I found an answer in a story he told me which had nothing to do with his actual career at all.
Frank and some buddies were out for a good time in Palisades Amusement Park, that mecca for roller coaster fans and cotton candy, overlooking the Hudson River just across the way from Manhattan.
His buddies dared him to ride a horse around the ring. It wasn't the kind of tame horse usually hired out to kiddies. It was no Shetland pony.
Frank took the dare. He'd never been on a horse before. This one took some dozen quick runs around the ring, Frank had all he could do to hang on, and finally brought the steed to a stop. He got off shaking.
Well, it wasn't a question of getting back on the horse that has thrown you. In the first place, Frank wasn't actually thrown. In the second place, he didn't have the price of another ride. But he determined then and there that one day he would learn how to handle those critters.
Now, as you probably know, Frank is one of the most skilled riders in the show business. One horse in his stables, Ginger, was outlawed in the Army for his ornery antics. Frank bought him because he was lively and interesting, put in a terrible bout with him one day in Central Park when a newspaper blew across the bridle path, and has now trained him into a prize-winning saddle horse.
Regarding that day in Central Park, Frank says, apparently mentally wiping his brow. "It was like a rodeo, really! I don't think I ever had a more interested audience in my life than gathered around to watch Ginger try to throw me."

BUT, to return to the East Side, young Frank Ciccio had no idea he would one day own a stable of saddle horses. He went to school, played hooky whenever possible, and never sang a song until he was dragged to church by Mrs. Ciccio to sing in the choir.
After high school, the show business appealed to young Frank. I regret to report, because it looked easy. He had no particular bent in any direction. He had learned to dance the dog around hurdy gurdys, and a few sleek steps in dance halls. So he decided to answer calls for chorus boys.
That was 1925 and the producers were calling all smoothies for the chorus of the first edition of "Greenwich Village Follies." Frank slicked back his hair, put on his best shirt and reported backstage. He got a job.
In the early part of the season, Frank Parker—as he was listed among the chorus boys in the program—got a so-called break. One of the singers in "Greenwich Village Follies" developed a fine case of laryngitis, and Frank was picked out of the chorus to do a one-night stand-in for the star.
"It was no special orchid to me," Frank says, "but I was the only logical one to do it I knew all the songs."
And how did they know that Frank knew all the songs? Well, while dressing backstage before performances, Frank had suddenly discovered the existence of vocal chords. He had begun to yodel the numbers from the show out of "sheer youthful exuberance." And his singing was duly noted and marked down for future reference by the producers.
FRANK didn't much want to get out there and sing. But he took it more or less in the spirit of a dare—the way he had got on that horse at Palisades Park when he was a youngster. He came off shaking, the same way he dismounted from the horse. And, like that other incident, he determined that one day he'd be able to face an audience and sing with assurance.
Frank's one-night stand made a great impression on the producers, though he didn't know it at the time. In several weeks he signed a contract to sing a star role in the next year's edition of the Follies.
He can't even remember the songs he did, he's sung so many since. But he recalls dimly it was something about "a nightingale and e rose" and that his romantic tenor got a hand. Frank didn't particularly want to be romantic He wanted to be funny.
Well, Frank has always loved to get laughs. His next move in the show business was to do a double in vaudeville. He and his partner, a fellow who has since retired from the footlights, did funny patter, dance routines and comic songs Frank can't remember anything very significant that happened then.
"We just had an awful lot of fun," he grins reminiscently, "and we played poker with probably every old stage door man on the circuit."
Then Frank got homesick for Broadway. He returned, informed booking offices and producers that the prodigal was in town again, and presto, he had a job singing in "Little Nellie Kelly." Two more musicals, "No, No Nannette" and "My Princess." followed. By this time Frank was convinced that his voice was his fortune.
BREAK Number Two came about this time. A friend of Frank's was scheduled for a guest appearance on a radio show. Frank's old ally, laryngitis, made this impossible. And Frank was asked to pinch-hit.
His one-time-shot made a big impression on the network's Artists Bureau, and Frank was signed immediately. For a year he made special appearances on variety shows as guest artist, then he was signed by A. & P. Gypsies. He was featured in that show for five and a half years.
Radio looked like an excellent idea to Frank. It kept him busy all the year round. It had no dead seasons like the theater.
Ever since Frank came to the airwaves, he has had no lengthy vacations from the mike. He used to do as many as nine programs a week until this year, when he signed as star of "The Atlantic Family," heard on Saturdays at 7 p. m. (E. S. T.) over the Columbia Broadcasting System, and decided to make it his exclusive show. Life was too short. Frank decided, to keep going every minute. He wanted more time to ride and study.
His most difficult broadcast occurred about four years ago when Frank did a stunt show from a fishing boat which was rolling around the Atlantic Ocean.
“Lord, was that a dandy ideal,” Frank exclaimed disgustedly. "It was one raw day. We started out early in the morning in a fog and were almost run down by a steamer. To top that, it got rougher and rougher, we were out all day making tests, and by evening, when the program was scheduled, everybody was seasick. My songs probably sounded lovesick—but what ailed me was the well-known mal de mere!"
HE HAD a laugh out of his experience with pictures.
"I was out on the coast singing with Jack Benny—then I came back East to make a picture!" He shakes his head in bewilderment. The picture is "Sweet Surrender." "I think I had more fun out there than I've ever had in my life." Frank says. In the first place, he met up with two old cronies and fellow clowns at heart, Clark Gable and Jack Oakie.
"I'll never forget the night of our special broadcast with Ben Bernie from Catalina Island, in the hotel’s big dining room. Well. Oakie and Gable came skulking in reading papers. They sat down in the front row and very conspicuously read papers and yawned all through the broadcast. Even Bernie went up on his lines!"
He has some gag snapshots taken on fishing expeditions with Gable and Oakie—but he won't part with them for purposes of publication.
"After all, Oakie and I are matinee idols." he chuckles. "Maybe Gable can get away with making faces'—but Oakie and I have to think of our public!"
And there you have Frank Parker. At heart he's still the kid from Mulberry St., who would rather do almost anything than take himself seriously.

Fox, Crow, Wolfie—Frank Graham

You’ll burn holes with your eyes through the film of a Columbia Fox and Crow cartoon before you find any screen credit about who provided the voices for either character. Same with the narrator in Car of Tomorrow, one of Tex Avery’s spot gag shorts at MGM. Or Wolfie whistling at Red in a bunch of Avery cartoons. Or the voice rhyming like Dr. Seuss in Horton Hatches the Egg at Warner Bros. That’s because Frank Graham never got his name on the screen for any of the cartoons featuring his voice. And there were a lot of them, once you start to add them up.

Update: Keith Scott, who is more well-versed on this than anyone on the planet, tells me Graham received screen credit on Disney’s The Three Caballeros.

Graham ended his life at the age of 35 in 1950. We’ve written about it in this post. Let’s post something a little more pleasant, and give you a bit of an idea about Graham’s non-cartoon career. Like almost all the professionals who lent their voices to cartoon characters, Graham’s real work was in radio. Unlike television, where endless rehearsals and memorisation translate into an actor being on one show, radio actors ran (literally) from programme to programme, network to network, racking up all kinds of work (and money) in a week. Graham was one of them. He later went into producing shows with Van Des Autels. Here’s a little profile of his radio career to date from Radio Life magazine, January 14, 1945.

Thank Your Lucky Stars
By Peggy Carter
Frank Graham and Lady Luck Haven't Missed Yet He Likes To Take It Easy and Does

FRANK GRAHAM is not only on the good side of Lady Luck herself, but possesses the rare touch of Midas. Fifty percent of that winning combination plus fifty percent of perspiration have landed Mr. Graham on the top of that radio heap labeled "actor-announcer." He boasts that there is just enough ham in him to enjoy his dual role.
When Radio Life recently called upon Frank we found him reluctant to talk about his past experiences. ("People won't be interested," he said.) He would much rather talk about his present chores. He is very pleased with the seven or eight shows of which he is a "regular." He is fond of his home. He is fond of his wife. In fact he likes to talk about everything but his beginnings in show business.
Frank Graham is a slight man to possess such a big voice. During the course of our conversation he would lapse into a Brooklyn accent, then quickly switch to the broadest of "A's" and perhaps finish in his best pear-shaped tones. He talks quite animatedly, constantly gesticulating to emphasize a point. He immediately captures one's attention and holds it.
How He Started
At fourteen, Frank insisted on a dramatic career. Against Papa's wishes he joined the Seattle Repertory Playhouse, which he now regards as the best training ground an actor could have. By the time he was seventeen his fanatic love for the theater had not passed (as Papa had hoped it would). Unfortunately, the Grahams' business was transferring them to California. Young Frank abandoned his southward-bound family and chose to stay in Seattle. From then on he was on his own and thus was born the "no-dough" days.
Frank, who was coining no money at the theater, made a deal with Seattle's two leading hotels. In exchange for washing dishes at one, he was given his meals. In exchange for washing windows at the other, he was given a place to sleep. For over a year and a half, he recalls, he never got enough sleep and always smelled of chicken grease.
If radio hadn't entered his life at that point poor Frank thinks he might still be carrying on the hotel routine. Through his connections with the Repertory Players he landed an announcing -acting spot for a local station. "Ah, ha," he laughs, "the dough started rolling in." He was making three dollars a week. But the "dough" kept rolling and pretty soon he was making the phenomenal sum of nine dollars a week and even reached the staggering proportions of nine dollars for a single radio appearance.
Then to Hollywood
After a successful career as Seattle's first free -lance announcer, he was "lured" to Hollywood. He really came down for a week -end visit. He has never gone back. That was in 1937.
He became a staff announcer for Station KNX and in 1938 his "Night Cap Yarns" were born. This (his favorite program) lengthened into 730 stories in which he acted every part. Then came the "Professor Cosmo Jones" series. An outgrowth of this was the Republic picture of the same name in which Frank starred.
Today his conservatively-garbed figure can be viewed at the mike as announcer on the Nelson Eddy program, and the Ginny Simms half-hour. As one of radio's most demanded character actors he can be heard on "Cavalcade," "Man Called X," "Stars Over Hollywood," and "This Is My Best."
He is thoroughly engrossed in his radio career, which takes up more than half of his waking hours. Another good -sized hunk of his time is devoted to his hobby, which is the legendary golden egg come to life.
At mention of this, his blue eyes twinkled and he talked freely about the International Service Corporation "the golden egg." Eight years ago Frank and several other gentlemen dreamed up the Service Corporation, but it wasn't until last June that it became a reality. The Corporation is a manufacturers' sales agency specializing in post -war household items, producing commercial motion pictures, and serving as real estate brokers and publishers' representatives. At present Frank and his co-workers are busily planning for its post-war expansion.
Leisure Time
Asked if he liked to read, go to movies, or night clubs, listen to records. cook or swim, he replied, "Are you kiddin'? When would I have time to do all of those things?" But he does take time out in the kitchen to prepare three things, egg sherry, bachelor's toast, and chicken liver omelets. He and his wife, Dorothy, have a new home in Nichol's Canyon where they spend all of their spare time. They don't go night-clubbing, but they do entertain their friends in their outdoor living room.
As for his "golden eggs," either Frank doesn't pay any attention to them or else he takes them for granted. At any rate he's an easy-going chap with no apparent worries. In regard to his being a shrewd business man, as one would naturally assume he is, he informed us that he recently hired a business manager. He doesn't know a sou from a shilling—he just watches them roll in.

Anyone who has watched the Snafu shorts wonderfully restored by Steve Stanchfield’s company Thunderbean Animation will have heard Graham. Here’s one of my favourites.

Casual Merry Men

Robin Hood’s Merry Men aren’t all that merry in Robin Hoodlum, the first UPA cartoon released by Columbia. They’re quite dispassionate, more interested in drinking tea than anything. But when Robin’s in trouble, they spring into action, forming a little bunch of men.



Off they run to the castle to rescue Robin. They stop to pant because they’re out of breath. Note the animator has them at different angles to each other.



The fox and crow hardly behave like they did when Columbia was making its own cartoons. The cartoon is pretty droll. But it’s not altogether the kind of cartoon you’d expect out of UPA. The characters squash and stretch, there’s overlapping action, and the pig King John’s movements look like something out of a later Disney cartoon. However the backgrounds are stylised, and the actors avoid “cartoony” voices (the fox and crow had been voiced by Frank Graham for Columbia). All this resulted in an Academy Award nomination.

Bill Hurtz got a design credit on the short and the credited animators were Bobe Cannon, Rudy Larriva, Pat Matthews and Willis Pyle.

Around the Pants We Go

Nothing goes together more than Van Beuren and skeletons. The boneless beings surfaced in a bunch of the studio’s cartoons (not coincidentally after Disney released “Skeleton Dance” in 1929), such as “The Haunted Ship” (1930). It’s a fun cartoon with lots of sea creatures swimming around and past the camera, and a drunken turtle quartet.

Ah, but there are skeletons, too. The perpetually-shaking Waffles the cat pulls a chord that, for no particular reason, drops down from above. Skeletons clamber down the steps and do a little dance.



The petrified Waffles shoves Don dog at the skeletons and they bust apart. Don gets his revenge by tossing a skull at the fleeing Waffles.



Waffles looks up (we get a couple of hat-takes), sees the skull floating above him and then does one of those Van Beuren things where he leaves his clothes, circles around them and then goes back inside them.



John Foster and Mannie Davis get screen credit.

The Show That Was Bigger Than a Breadbox

Television had three different kinds of game shows in the ‘50s. There was the stunt show, like Beat the Clock or Truth or Consequences where contestants had to accomplish something silly or embarrassing to win something. There was the giveaway show, like Stop the Music or Break the Bank, where a host, either hyper or perma-smiling (or in the case of Bert Parks, both) had cash or prizes galore for the contestant with the correct answer. And then there was the parlour game, where celebrities would try to guess something about a guest—a name, occupation, secret, etc.

The latter were deemed the elite of game shows. No tawdry exploits while the audience screamed. No screeching and phoney dramatics by the host. No, the parlour games were much more refined and tasteful. And sophisticated. The celebrities came dressed in evening wear on the night-time shows.

The Goodson-Todman empire specialised in these kinds of programmes. Mark Goodson and Bill Todman both started in radio, Goodson as an announcer and Todman as a salesman. Together something clicked. Their three best-known shows of the parlour variety from the early ‘50s are What’s My Line?, its clone I’ve Got a Secret and To Tell The Truth. To be honest, they hold up after 60 years and are entertaining today.

The first was What’s My Line and debuted on February 2, 1950. The premiere was a mess. The director was replaced and so were two of the four panelists. By year’s end, poet Louis Untermeyer and gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen were joined by people with broadcasting experience—radio hostess Arlene Francis and radio comedy writer Hal Block. And that’s when Times-Herald syndicate TV columnist John Crosby decided to review the show.

The air of the show wasn’t quite rarified enough for Crosby. His target wasn’t Block, finally fired from the programme for his suggestive (for the ‘50s) comments directed at contestants of the opposite sex. It was Kilgallen, who seemed to provoke programme moderator John Daly into testy tete-a-tetes with her on camera.

This column appeared in newspapers starting December 30, 1950.

RADIO IN REVIEW
BY JOHN CROSBY
PREMIUM ON NOSINESS
One of the oldest of the gimmick programs, with which television it already over-loaded, is "What's My Line?" (CBS-TV 10:30 p. m. EST Sundays). This one puts a premium on nosiness other people's business, not normally considered a nice habit, but I must admit it makes a fairly entertaining program.
"What's My Line?" is a panel show in which the panelists are asked to determine someone's occupation, using the animal-vegetable-or-mineral approach. The regular crew consists of Dorothy Kilgallen, Louis Untermeyer, Arlene Francis, Hal Block and John Daly, the emcee. The casuals generally come from that pool of floating guests who appear on everyone's program, including their own—Ilka Chase, Wendy Barry, Abe Burrows, Betty Furness and the rest of them.
Everybody ready for the game now? Well, Mr. Daly introduces a lighthouse-keeper—they dig up some wonderfully unusual occupations—and, after the panelists inspect him briefly for watermarks, they fall to questioning him. "Do you work for a profit-making organization?" "Is your business affected by the water shortage?" "Do you take people out of the dark and into the light?"
Since both the studio audience and the home audience know the answer, there is a good deal of dramatic irony in many of the questions. A fingerprint expert for the police department was asked if his work made the people he was performing the service for happier. He said no. Well, does it make them better? This question was thrown out as unanswerable.
Sometimes the questions are cutting, frequently unnecessarily so, especially when they come from Miss Kilgallen who appears to bear a grudge against all the guests. One of the mystery guests was a tall well-built woman with long earrings named Mrs. Linda Stone. From Miss Kilgallen: "I think she's a straight woman in a burlesque house in West New York, New Jersey"— a remark that embarrassed even me. Later Miss Kilgallen asked the same woman: "Are you able to handle many customers?," followed by "Do you work at night? Mrs. Stone, it developed, was a housewife.
Another guest of innocuous appearance turned out to be a sportswriter. "A writer?" shrieked Miss Kilgallen, incredulously. "On what paper?" The man worked on the "Journal-American," Miss Kilgallen's own paper, and went on to inform her that she passed his desk nearly every day.
Each program also boasts a mystery celebrity and during this part of the questioning the panelists are blindfolded. The mystery celebrities have included Elliott Roosevelt, Gypsy Rose Lee, Dizzy Dean and Ed Sullivan. While groping around for their identities, the panelists commit some pretty funny gaffes. When it was determined that Ed Sullivan had his own television show, Mr. Block asked him if he were funny. Mr. Sullivan sighed and said no. "You've got your own show on television and you're not funny?" remarked Block incredulously. Miss Lee was asked if she were famous for being well-dressed. Mr. Roosevelt was asked if he were a Republican. "No," said Mr. R. "I detect a touch of Harvard in that voice," muttered Mr. Block.
Dizzy Dean, who has gained considerable fame for manhandling the English language, not all of it deserved, proved to be a very tractable, well-spoken mystery celebrity on the show. When someone suggested he was Dizzy Dean, Miss Kilgallen gasped: "Oh, it can't be! He sounds too intelligent!" Old Diz has been accused of a lot of things but lack of intelligence isn't one of them. Miss Kilgallen later apologized.

If the audience detected anything unlikeable about Kilgallen, it didn’t care. What’s My Line? carried on every Sunday night until 1967, and then a syndicated version (decidedly more daytime looking) hit the airwaves for another seven years. The show brought the question “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” into popularity. The answer could have been the show itself.

Cartoon Rule 514: Skunks Smell

What’s a cartoon about a skunk without a smell joke? They’re practically mandatory.

Here’s the opening shot of “Little 'Tinker.” The camera opens on a shot of the left side of Johnny Johnsen’s background and then quickly pans to the right.



A skunk wouldn’t use Lifebuoy. He’d use a pun.



Scott Bradley throws a musical pun in the score. When Avery closes in on the soap, Bradley tosses in a woodwind playing the “B.O.” foghorn notes that were heard on every Lifebuoy ad on radio.

The combination of skunks and phoney French isn’t restricted to French skunks. An American skunk stars in this picture.



Here’s another “P.U.” joke. Good old P.U., the cartoon’s favourite.



Soap and perfume doesn’t help. (I suppose the air from the fans helped the flowers grow in the first place).



Tex Avery’s animation crew in this is Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Bob Bentley and Bill Shull.

Avery’s not an “awwww” kind of director but he (and the uncredited story man) set it up through the picture for a happy ending.